FERN Microbiological Cooperative Agreement Program Grant

FDA's Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) has recently announced that it will be using its Microbiological Cooperative Agreement Program Grant mechanism (U18) to solicit applications from institutions/organizations that would like to become part of the Microbiology Cooperative Agreement Program (CAP).

The Microbiology CAP is intended to select state and local FERN laboratories to provide surge capacity testing in the event of a large-scale foodborne illness outbreak or other food emergency situations. The CAP will also be used to implement standardized analysis results through the use of standardized methods, equipment platforms and reporting.

For full Program Announcement (PAR-09-215) and details, please visit here. Applications must be submitted electronically through grants.gov. The deadline(s) for submitting grant applications is 5:00 pm local time on July 29, 2009, July 29, 2010, July 29, 2011.